The European Medicine Agency’s (EMA) management board has elected the head of the Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency Dr Christa Wirthumer-Hoche to be its new vice chair.
Dr Wirthumer-Hoche, who will hold the position for a three-year term, succeeds Prof Dr Walter Schwerdtfeger following his retirement from the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices.
She has been involved in the European medicines regulatory network since 1995, when Austria joined the European Union, has was a member of the Coordination Group for Mutual Recognition and Decentralised Procedures – Human (CMDh) between 2005 and 2013.
Dr Wirthumer-Hoche is the co-chair of the recently created EU network training centre and has been a member of the EMA Management Board since October 2013.
She joined the Austrian National Institute for Quality Control of Drugs, as it was then known, in 1983, focusing initially on the assessment of quality documentation.
Between 1998 and 2005 she headed up the licensing division for medicinal products within the Unit for Pharmaceutical Affairs in the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health and Women.
Then, with the 2006 founding of the new Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency, Dr Wirthumer-Hoche took up a role as head of institute for marketing authorisation and lifecycle management of medicinal products, before being appointed its head in 2013.